FTL: Limited Information (Federation Victory!)

[Enter]

You can have one of mine

[callforjudgement]

Jump 57

Ion stacking (n)

. A strategy involving using ion weapons to repeatedly disrupt a system, locking it down and preventing it ever repairing.

At the next jump, we come across a fairly threatening sight: the enemy Slug ship has two ion weapons and a Halberd Beam. PvtUrist does his best to keep the enemy weapons systems down, but nonetheless, we have severe trouble keeping our shields up past the ionic disruption. Eventually, though, our beams take out the enemy ship, yielding us some fuel, some ammo, and ⛯36, but everyone saw first-hand what sort of damage our ship was taking in the meantime.

[callforjudgement]

Jump 58

Chancer (n)

. A ship that aims to prey on other ships, particularly military ships, but is underequipped for the purpose. Chancers tend not to live very long, as they're inevitably wiped out by their victims.

Only two shield barriers? Only two, mismatched, laser shots to go with their beam weapon? Maybe the Slug hunting ship here thought they could take advantage of our damaged state, but if they were going to attack the Federation, they really needed better equipment with which to do so. Their shields don't stand up to our lasers, and their hull doesn't stand up to our beams. We loot ⛯34 from their remains.

[callforjudgement]

Jump 59

Convoy (n)

. A set of ships, normally a number of small warships guarding a large valuable ship such as a transport ship or capital ship.

There's a Slug convoy using this beacon, but they don't seem interested in attacking or interacting with us; they immediately fire up their impulse engines and zoom off to some unknown location within the Nebula. We don't have the right equipment to be able to follow them (and besides, they'd probably blow up our ship if we tried), so we can't do much but watch and wait. I wonder what they were escorting?

[callforjudgement]

Jump 60

Husk (n)

. An asteroid or other object that has no valuable materials left; typically a mining base which has nothing left to mine. These are common sights in more developed areas, as local materials tend to be mined out first, and are sometimes repurposed as developments.

It looks like the beacon here was placed to serve a mining base, but it's long-abandoned now; the asteroids they were mining have nothing left. Presumably this area was exhausted of its minerals years ago. The beacon would have been left behind because there was no reason to remove it, but all it's done here is to waste our time.

[callforjudgement]

Jump 61

Squadron system (n)

. A system of attack in which several crew are teleported over to an enemy ship at once, and then recalled as soon as they get close to death, followed up with a separate squad of crew while the first squadron heals.

Although this is Slug territory, it's not only Slug ships we have to face. There's a Mantis ship here; it's unclear why they were here in the first place, but they decide that attacking the Federation is a good enough thing to be doing. They seem highly disciplined, as well, sending over squads of troops to sabotage our ship, then recalling them when it looks like they're in danger. Enter keeps people posted about their movements, and we pretty much have to use their own tactics against them, repeatedly cycling crew between whatever system they're breaking and the Infirmary. Even so, they manage to do some structural damage to our ship that's going to need specialised equipment to repair.

Meanwhile, a battle also rages in the space between the ships, with their lasers and beam against our EMP and artillery. Unlike the stalemate on board our ship, the battle outside shifts in our favour: apparently they were concentrating too heavily on repairing the EMP damage to their shields, as when their weapons went down, they never did manage to fix them. Eventually they give up boarding our ship in order to fix theirs, but by then it's too late: their shields ever-so-slowly went down to EMP damage, and eventually their life support systems went down too. We drive over to their ship, finding no air left on board it and thus no living crewmembers, and grab ⛯45 worth of usable equipment.

OK, I'm feeling a bit happier about my microinig abilities again.

[callforjudgement]

Jump 62

Raid (n)

. An organised attack by a group of multiple pirates on a valuable target, typically at a pre-arranged time. Everyone involved stands to profit if the attack is a success, but raids often fail due to infighting as to how to split the rewards.

We arrive at the beacon to discover the middle of a fight: it must have been a long fight to last through the jumpcycle. There are two Slug ships in the distance attacking a pirate warship and a pirate transport ship; as we're in a nebula and the fight is some distance away, we can't really get a good view of how well they're armed. Before we can arrive on the scene, one of the Slug ships breaks apart.

[callforjudgement]

Apparently some sort of negotiation was going on between our Slug and theirs, because we end up joining the battle: us against the warship, them against the transport ship. We make good progress in taking down the pirate's weapons and disabling their shields, as the Slugs take out the transport ship and start looting it. Then we realise they're trying to run away from the beacon with all the scrap! Surely that wasn't part of the deal.

[Enter]

Shoot down the maggots they're trying to get away with the scrap they promised me

[Enter]

A slug needs his scrap

[callforjudgement]

It looks like the Slug ship was heavily damaged: no wonder they didn't want to fight the pirate warship. It looks like they don't want to fight us, either, and they leave without fully looting the area; they left half the goods in the pirate ship behind, and sent us a message saying they were planning to do that all along. We don't exactly believe them, but given that they just jumped away, we don't have much of an option but to take the scrap.

The pirate ship we were fighting took the opportunity to leave, too. It's unclear whether they're hiding in the nebula or whether they jumped out, but we're unable to find them. So all we end up with is the ⛯44 from the pirate transport.

[callforjudgement]

Jump 63

Bodging (v)

. The art of creating a new device out of scrapped old devices. This is often used to keep a ship running or upgraded when there are no proper repair facilities available.

Well, we've reached the Long-Range Beacon. We're deep in a nebula, but at the edge of Slug space: the Slugs' territory extends to the lower path shown here, whereas the upper path leads outside it. We've seen enough dangers from the Slugs already: what sort of threat might be severe enough that they don't conquer a nebula so close to their homeworlds?

There's no information available on further sectors, but assuming nothing's changed since the last time we checked, the map of future sectors should look like this:

Code: Select all

    ?-F
  X< / >C
    ?-?

X = we are here
C = Federation High Command
F = area is under the control of the Federation or its allies
? = area is uninhabited, or no information available

Meanwhile, we have time to look over our ship. This Long-Range Beacon is surprisingly deserted for what should be a major connection within Slug territory: there are a few abandoned warehouses near here, and not much else. As much as we need them, we can't find any ship repair facilities here: there is some abandoned engineering equipment, but it's designed for fine work, soldering together circuits, repairing damaged motors, that sort of thing. Perhaps we could get some of the scrap equipment we looted back into working order, to save on future purchases?

[Varsoon]

We can't repair at this beacon, folks.
If we get into another serious fight, we're done for.

[the worst]

Shield upgrade anyone?

[Varsoon]

Can we buy shield upgrades here?

[the worst]

Yus. Thanks for the scrap. It's ours.

[the worst]

I'm tempted to dump scrap into a door upgrade (35) but I basically have 52 left

[PvtUrist]

we can 30 scraps artilery

[the worst]

Let me know what you guys need from me scrap wise. I'll be on it tomorrow morning.

[callforjudgement]

Remember that before we can leave this beacon, we'll need to decide where to go next.

[the worst]

I now have 81.25 scrap (thanks PvtUrist)!
While I don't intend to die I'm not sure I'm the best source for it rn.

Oxygen upgrade = 35
Sensor upgrade = 25
Door upgrade = 35

With 13.75 more scrap I guess I could buy all of these but what do you guys think? Doors are the obvious choice holistically. Oxygen allows for braver microing and a buffer in a scary fight. Sensors I love (especially vs. the flagship) but a lot of people disagree with me.

What do you all reckon?

[Varsoon]

Hold on, I actually might need more power now, let me check.

[Varsoon]

Yeah, gonna need 55 to upgrade our reactor so we can power what we've got now.

[the worst]

incoming.

[callforjudgement]

Just a mod note: I screwed up the maths in at least one private topic, it has been edited to correct it.

I don't think the changed numbers would have had any significant impact on people's actions.